Meet the super super PAC

These nascent groups can not only raise mega cash to promote candidates, but give money to candidates’ campaigns — a kind of political power and intimacy today’s super PACs alone can’t achieve.

Here’s how it works: under new federal rules, a traditional PAC and super PAC may operate under one roof. These hybrid operations can raise and spend unlimited amounts of cash to promote or oppose candidates, as any super PAC can, while simultaneously giving limited amounts of money directly to campaigns and committees, like a traditional political action committee.

Already, 11 of these hybrids have emerged, representing a range of political ideologies and purposes. They foreshadow even further tumult within the nation’s campaign finance system as the two-year anniversary of the seminal Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision arrives Saturday.

Several operatives involved with them predict the popularity of special interest hybrid PACs will explode during the next year as more organizations become aware of them and realize their benefits.

“Any PAC that doesn’t become a hybrid PAC is run by idiots. The default is going to be hybrid PACs,” said Dan Backer, the principal attorney at DB Capitol Strategies who successfully argued last year’s Carey v. Federal Election Commission case, the decision in which legalized hybrid PACs for those not tied to corporations and unions.

“It’d be ludicrous to limit your ability when you have this right,” he said. “My thought is that we’ll never say ‘super PAC’ again in 10, maybe five years.”

Two major super PACs, both of which have poured millions of dollars into this year’s presidential campaign, confirm to POLITICO they’re considering morphing into hybrid PACs.

“If Newt Gingrich gets the nomination, we would want a very strong ticket up and down the line, and this would definitely help in that regard, giving us the ability to donate direct to candidates,” said Rick Tyler, an official at pro-Gingrich super PAC Winning Our Future, which to date has spent several million dollars promoting the House speaker or attacking his opponents. “We’re not going to leave any weapon in the the arsenal.”

Said Abe Niederhauser, treasurer of the pro-Ron Paul Endorse Liberty super PAC: “It seems like a big advantage. I’d be interested in learning more about it. We might want to do it.”

For PACs that have already gone hybrid — they range from the Conservative Action Fund to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund — the advantages are notable and immediate, several officials said.

One likened it to the difference between paying high home utility bills issued by several different companies versus paying one bill from single provider who bundles services together for a lower overall rate.

“It really makes it a lot easier to organize your efforts and fundraise. You’re looking at a 30, 40, 50 percent savings on overhead costs and administration alone,” said Dave Mason, a two-time FEC chairman who helped create PURO PAC, a hybrid formed last month to advocate for the premium cigar industry and support candidates who oppose federal cigar regulations. “You can put that savings into politics, like ads or contributions. And for traditional PACs, it’s going to contribute to pushing their activity in the direction of more independent expenditures — and I’m not saying whether that’s good or bad.”